Wednesday, May 7, 2014

eXistenZ (1999)

Title: eXistenZ (1999)

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Ian Holm

eXistenZ comes to us from David Cronenberg a director who
loves to swim in the waters of the philosophical, the psychosexual, the violent
and the just plain horrifying. Cronenberg explores the most basic parts of
human nature: violence and sex. If we look through most of Cronenberg’s films,
they all deal with many of these same themes. Take for example The Fly (1986); a
very sexual film about a scientist who embraces his aggressive side once he
starts turning into the monstrous Fly; everything ends rather violently on that
one. The Brood (1979) is about a woman who externalizes all her worst feelings
by giving birth to these violent, murderous little kids. Scanners (1981) is all
about the power of the mind! And the abuse of that power! Again, on Scanners humans
embrace their violent side, the end result is a confrontation between two powerful
Scanners and the end result is not a happy one. A History of Violence (2005),
well, the title says it all, but again, a very violent and sexual film.

Videodrome (1983) is a good example as well; aside from the
themes Cronenberg usually addresses in his films, Videodrome is a film that explores
the media and humanities obsession with it. Why do we love television so much?
Why are we so obsessed with what we see? “The television screen is the retina
of the mind’s eye” Cronenberg goes on to explore our obsession with all the sex
and violence shown on television. It seems Cronenberg is making a case for
humanity; as if he wants us to live in the real world rather than spending our
time sitting in front of a television, obsessed with porn and graphic violence.
The image of a television gobbling up James Woods lets us know exactly what
Cronenberg was concerned with while making Videodrome; television is consuming
us! It’s no wonder that at some point a character yells “death to Videodrome!
Long live the new flesh!” It’s as if
Cronenberg’s characters had a personal battle against television screens, a
battle between freedom of the mind vs. a mind enslaved by television programming;
a battle that I’m sad to say humanity has lost. Many take for granted whatever
is spewed out of the television screen.

What eXistenZ does is play with these themes presented in
Videodrome, but from the point of view of video games. Same as television,
videogames offer an escape. In fact, if we get right down to it, video games
are a much more immersive experience. You essentially get to live a ‘second life’;
you control an alter ego through imaginary worlds. In these games you live or die
by the decisions you make, in this way, videogames serve as an allegory for
real life. You make the right choices; you just might make it to the end. Modern
society is just as obsessed with videogames because they offer an escape not
unlike the virtual reality worlds that appear in films likeJohnny Mnemonic (1995)
or The Matrix (1999). You plug yourself in and you’re in another world for
hours on end if you like. But, at what point does the videogame world become
more interesting than the real world?

In eXistenZ we meet Allegra Geller, a video game programmer
who is trying out her new game with a test audience, just to see how they like
it and to work out any kinks. In a way, eXistenZ reminded me of Total Recall (1989)
because in eXistenZ, once you plug into the virtual reality world of the game,
things start to get bat shit insane, which of course is where the fun starts. The
thing about eXistenZ is that same as as in Videodrome, there’s people out there
fighting to disconnect humans from the fakeness of the game world, fighting for
humans to live out their real lives instead of their virtual ones. So we have
these guerilla groups who are out to kill videogame programmers, which is what
the film is mostly about. Allegra Geller and her bodyguard Ted Pikul running
from these anti-gaming terrorist organizations.

Many things make this one extremely watchable, first of all
is that feeling of ‘what the hell is going on here’ you’ll feel throughout the
whole film. The feeling that you know something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put
your finger on what it is. Are we in the game? Or are we in the real world? Then
we have Willem Defoe playing a character called ‘Gas’; really freaky type of
character. Then there’s the body horror element, in the form of the actual
gaming system. The best way I can describe it is imagine if your gaming system
was a living being that you had to take care of and that you plug directly into
your spinal cord whenever you want to play? Like in many Cronenberg films, there’s
some really gory scenes, overall, exactly the type of thing you’d expect from Cronenberg.
So yeah, this is one of those movies with a real weird vibe to it, similar in
someways to Cronenberg’s own Videodrome and films like Tron (1982) or The
Matrix (1999), where most of the film takes place in a virtual reality world; only
this virtual reality world comes from the twisted mind of David Cronenberg,
which is a-okay in my book.

3 comments:

I've adored this film from the first time I watched it, as its the sort of movie you just want to crawl inside to explore further, while equally fun to see Cronenberg giving what could be seen as his version of the matrix from the scenes like the pod factory through to the lunchtime special which become the bio-pistol complete with teeth ammunition. Its just such a shame they marked this film as an action thriller rather than a curiosity to let wash over you like "The Cell"

Elwood: I hear ya about studio marketing, this film is not action at all...it's more of a psychological thriller. But you know studios will do anything to sell a movie, especially when they think it wont sell. For example, that quote on the cover about this movie making The Matrix look like childsplay is a bit exagerated because while both films do have similarities, especially when the virtual world is concerned, they are both very different films. Tonally they are nothing alike! The Matrix is an action sci-fi, while eXistenZ is much more pshychological film that slowly creeps under your skin.